Hamilton leads Friday Practice 2

Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets again in Friday Practice 2, as yet more reliability problems struck the Red Bulls.

Hamilton’s fastest lap was a 1.34.175, set during a short-fuel run. Sebastian Vettel struggled with power steering problems, but still managed the second fastest time. He was 0.266 seconds behind Lewis. Nico Rosberg topped off the top three, only two thousands of a second behind Vettel.

However, the awful reliability of the Red Bulls hit Mark Webber harder than Vettel. Webber stopped at the Turn 9 gravel trap, though it is not yet clear what caused the stoppage. He only set 13 laps, and therefore only got 20th place, 4.6 seconds behind Hamilton.

In fourth was Jenson Button, two tenths off his team-mate’s time. He initially complained about setup difficulties at the start, but soon got into his stride. Behind him was Michael Schumacher, who got many more laps in after his hydraulic problems in the morning. He was half a second behind the frontrunners. Robert Kubica was sixth, a full seconds behind Hamilton, despite setting 34 laps.

The Ferraris continued to work on heavy-fuel runs, with Fernando Alonso seventh and Felipe Massa fifteenth. However, the mood from some of the team may indicate that not all of their pace is down to the fuel loads, and they may be in for a tough weekend. Fernando was 1.4 seconds back, with Felipe another second behind.

Sebastien Buemi continued his good form, finishing eighth. Vitaly Petrov and Adrian Sutil topped off the top ten. Both Saubers improved again, with Kobayashi and De la Rosa getting eleventh and thirteenth respectively. Vitantonio Liuzzi took the car back off Paul di Resta in the afternoon, and ended up twelfth. This was certainly a good day for the Force, with good results, and getting to test a new young driver.

Jaime Alguersuari was fourteenth, followed by Massa and the two Williams drivers of Barrichello and Hulkenberg.

Jarno Trulli again led the charge of the new teams, followed by team-mate Heikki Kovalainen. Both drivers are getting closer and closer to the midfield, being only 4 seconds behind the fastest time. Mark Webber split the Lotus and Virgin drivers, with Timo Glock leading Lucas di Grassi. The HRTs filled the back row, this time with Karun Chandhok beating Bruno Senna. He pulled out a great lap near the end of the session, and finished nearly half a second ahead of Senna.